1. Field
Subject matter disclosed herein relates to a method of manufacturing a semiconductor integrated circuit device, and more particularly to a method of fabricating a phase change memory device.
2. Information
Advances in semiconductor process technology generally result in increasingly dense, higher capacity electronic devices, such as memory. Increased density may lead to decreases in feature sizes, or critical dimensions (CD) of such electronic devices. Though higher-density electronic devices are a welcome advance, producing such devices involves challenges. For example, increased density, resulting in an increased aspect ratio (L/D) of semiconductor structures such as contact-like holes, may lead to void (keyhole, seam) issues during a gap-fill process. Such a void may adversely impact phase change memory (PCM) more than for other electronic devices: a PCM memory cell may include a heater to which voltage may be applied in order to produce heat to induce a phase change of chalcogenide material contacting the heater. Voids in a heater may not only physically damage the heater during an operating cycle of a memory cell, but may also affect the extent to which the heater is able to change the phase of chalcogenide materials in the PCM memory cell. Accordingly, such voids may lead to reliability issues of a PCM.